Intimidation has no place in a seat of learning

Monday 9 December 2013 15.59 EST
First published on Monday 9 December 2013 15.59 EST

The repression against student protesters covered in the Guardian last week (Police accused of excessive force at protests on campus, 6 December) is not limited to London. In the same week as the clashes with police at University of London, five students at Sussex University were suspended for their role in a peaceful occupation, and Sheffield and Birmingham university managements went to court to prevent protests on their campuses.

Activist groups across the country have called a national day of action for the right to organise and protest, and for "Cops off campus" on Wednesday 11 December.

University of London management is facing protests because of its plan to shut down the student union, University of London Union; its refusal to recognise the trade union, IWGB, that represents the majority of its outsourced ancillary workers; and its failure to provide these workers with basic rights such as pensions. Solidarity with campus staff has been a central theme of recent student protests.

These protests have also raised wider questions about the marketisation of our education system, from increased fees and soaring student debt to the privatisation of student loans to the functioning of universities as corporations.

Workers and students are opposing not just the police but the university bosses, private contractors and government the police protect.Daniel CooperUniversity of London Union vice-presidentand 104 student representatives from around the UKFull list to be published on www.ulu.co.uk on Tuesday morning

• We unreservedly condemn the escalating use of police against peaceful protests at the University of London. It seems clear that the university management is not negotiating with students and staff who protest – including occupying students – but is simply attempting to suppress dissent. We condemn the blanket injunction that prohibits occupations in Bloomsbury campuses until June 2014.

We call on all who care about the future of our universities to object to this invited invasion of the police onto campuses. Police intimidation has no place in a seat of learning. Many staff and students have fled repressive regimes. We are horrified at supposedly "liberal" university managements adopting these tactics.

We demand an immediate repudiation of the injunction by the university management, no more police on campus, and for management to engage with students and staff about the concerns that led to the protests in the first place.Molly CooperUnison service group executive, Sean Wallis UCU NEC & University College UCU president, Simon Deville Birkbeck Unison branch secretary, Elizabeth LawrenceUCL UCU President and 100 academics and members of higher education trade unions around the UK Full list to be published on www.ulu.co.uk on Tuesday morning

• Rather than responding to a set of eminently reasonable and practicable demands to try to defend the right to education and just working conditions in our university, senior management at the University of London have decided that, when faced with the choice between dialogue and repression, they will to turn to the latter.

Describing the student occupation as "a disgraceful and aggressive act, which placed the safety of our staff at risk", Chris Cobb, chief operating officer and university secretary, declared: "The university will always support peaceful and legitimate protest." The mendacity of this statement is breathtaking. "Disgraceful and aggressive" describes very well the behaviour of management willing to ban all protest in Senate House, regardless of how peaceful, collude in the arrest of students, and call police and security guards to evict protesters before entering into any serious dialogue whatsoever.

Students and staff are being bombarded with marketing talk about "the student experience", but as soon as they act as anything other than compliant consumers, their spaces are taken away and their right to political expression and assembly quashed.

It seems that those who run our universities will move heaven and earth to improve satisfaction statistics for the National Student Survey, but are perfectly at ease with police punching their students in the face. This is intolerable. We demand that the university's vice-chancellor and its collegiate council act immediately to rescind the closure of the University of London Union and the prohibition of protest at Senate House, and stop calling police on to our campuses at the least sign of serious dissent. Universities should be run for students and staff, not against them. If senior management refuses to understand this, those who work and learn in our universities will have to draw the consequences and act to show that we have no confidence in those who run our institutions.Alberto Toscano Reader in critical theory, Goldsmiths, Bill BowringProfessor of law, Birkbeck,Lynn WelchmanProfessor of law, Soas and 197 academics and staff at University of London collegesFull list of signatories at bit.ly/1cwphbI

• John Harris's piece (University of strife, 7 December) illustrates the failure of what passes for modern management. Less than a generation ago universities were communities presided over by a vice-chancellor whose stipend was that of a well-paid professor, no greater than 10 times the average of all employees. Academics, students, administrators, technicians, secretarial staff and cleaners could all feel they were making a contribution that added up to a greater whole.

Following the mantra "We must pay the going rate for a CEO", we are landed with a bloated administration that drains funds from the institution at the expense of both the academics and the low-paid. There is now a small, very well-paid elite pursuing ephemera of branding, competition and international growth, underpinned by a well-remunerated cohort of box-ticking managers. Contracting out security, cleaning and catering saves a pittance at the expense of the low-paid.

What puzzles me is where lies the managerial magic that allows Balfour Beatty to make a profit and the university a saving, which is not within the competence of the university itself. In all probability the same university offers courses it claims to be at the cutting-edge of management. To their credit, the students seem to be searching for a solution to this conundrum. JR O'Callaghan, Emeritus professorGidea Park, Essex